Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson (8 October 1941-) was an American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, and he served as Shadow Senator for Washington DC from 3 January 1991 to 3 January 1997, preceding Paul Strauss.

Biography
Jesse Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina in 1941, and he studied at the University of Illinois and the Chicago Theological Seminary. He rose through the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to become an aide to Martin Luther King, Jr.. Jackson stood by King when the former was shot. After King's death, he began to try to expand the Civil Rights movement to focus on the economic inequalities in American life for people of all races. He adopted a tone as sensitive to class as to color, and tried to build up a "rainbow coalition" of all minorities to overcome the traditional white, male power structure in the United States. He became one of the most prominent and influential African-Americans in the USA by 1980, and the first serious African-American contender for the presidency when he ran for the Democratic nomination in the 1984 presidential elections. In 1988, Jackson came closer to winning the nomination of a major party than any black man before, with the possible exception of Colin Powell in 1996. From 1988, he focused on a message of moral renewal and the leadership of African-American groups on the left of American politics. Jackson would be an initial critic of Bill Clinton's "Third Way" politics, but he was key in securing African-American support for Clinton in 1996. He would also initially criticize Barack Obama, claiming that he acted like he was white, and he also said that he wanted to "cut his nuts off" after he chastised black fathers for abandoning their children. However, Jackson would continue to be a strong supporter of Obama, and he supported his efforts to legalize same-sex marriage. Jackson's Jesse Jackson Jr. was elected to the US House of Representatives from Illinois' 2nd district in 1995, and resigned in 2012 over a corruption scandal.